Guest Opinion: More work needed to connect manufacturers with skilled workers

Sunday

Jul 6, 2014 at 5:00 PM

We are entering the fifth year of our recovery from the Great Recession. But this recovery has been very imbalanced and many have yet to fully experience its benefits. Those who have largely been left behind include the long-term unemployed, the young, and the poorly educated.

Michael D. Goodman

We are entering the fifth year of our recovery from the Great Recession. But this recovery has been very imbalanced and many have yet to fully experience its benefits. Those who have largely been left behind include the long-term unemployed, the young, and the poorly educated.

For more than a generation, cities like Fall River and New Bedford that were once home to numerous manufacturing jobs that provided middle class wages and stable careers, have seen these opportunities decline steadily thanks to productivity enhancing technology, streamlined business processes, and stiff global competition.

While we should not expect a return to the halcyon days of plentiful industrial job opportunities anytime soon, there is strong evidence to suggest that expected retirements in our technical workforce and resurgent growth in key advanced manufacturing sectors are creating real targeted opportunities for workers who have the right skills and experience.

Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to lead the Advanced Manufacturing Regional Partnership Academy, a state-funded research and technical assistance effort designed to help regions respond to the workforce needs of manufacturers. To assess these needs, the academy recently surveyed 1,350 Bay State manufacturers, including 294 in southeastern Massachusetts.

One in three manufacturers told us that they have a difficult time hiring the production workers they need. This is striking, especially when one considers that Massachusetts has lost over 50,000 manufacturing jobs in the past decade and we have yet to see the kind of wage increases we would expect if there were a true labor shortage.

Our survey findings and recent research conducted at MIT suggest that part of the explanation for this apparent disconnect concerns the ways in which our educational and training institutions engage with manufacturers in their ongoing efforts to ensure that their students develop the skills and experience that are required for success on the modern shop floor.

Large majorities of the firms we surveyed reported that they have never worked with their local comprehensive high schools (73 percent), community colleges (69 percent), four-year universities (76 percent), and workforce investment boards (83 percent). Only 10 percent of firms reported that they work closely with a vocational high school.

This lack of engagement comes with a heavy price that is being paid by both our growing employers and our jobseekers, including those who complete educational and training programs lacking the skills and experience that modern manufacturing firms demand of their production workers.

While it is clear that finding ways to better connect our educational and workforce development institutions to growing employers is necessary, it will not be sufficient to successfully meet this challenge. We must also make sure that our public institutions have the capacity to meet these needs, including access to contemporary equipment and instructors with the knowledge and experience required to effectively prepare their students.

Successful efforts in western and central Massachusetts clearly demonstrate that this challenge can be met if employers are effectively engaged, educational and training programs are grounded in an evidence based understanding of employer needs, and key public institutions, armed with the necessary resources, successfully align their programs in the service of a common goal. Employers also need to be willing to invest the time and energy to engage with these institutions and to regularly and clearly communicate their workforce needs.

Notably, those who stand to benefit the most from a successful regional effort to meet this challenge are the same people who have been left behind in this recovery. While there are clear opportunities in areas like CNC Machine Operation, where in-depth classroom and on the job education and training are required, 90 percent of manufacturers surveyed report that, “if a production worker has the right attitude and basic skills, they are willing to provide them with the additional training required.”

Interviews with manufacturers across the state reveal that these basic skills include the ability to consistently show up for work on time and work effectively in teams, practical knowledge of basic math, and basic blueprint reading skills.

Here on the SouthCoast, the region’s workforce investment boards have already begun to work with local manufacturing leaders to meet this challenge. Their work will not be easy and these problems will not be solved overnight. But considering the very real need for quality job opportunities for workers with lower levels of formal educational attainment, and the reported needs of our growing employers, these efforts deserve the sustained attention and support of our political, educational and business leaders.

Michael D. Goodman is an associate professor of public policy at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where he serves as the director of its Center for Policy Analysis. For more information on the work of the Advanced Manufacturing Regional Partnership Academy, please visit www.umassd.edu/amrpa.

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